The present invention relates generally to disk type data recording, and specifically to systems and apparatus used in reproducing digital media.
In recent years, many consumer-oriented products targeted to meeting a rising consumer demand for recording information have become available on the market. Data recording devices of many types now exist that can record data on various types of media. For example, hard disks can be prepared for use in personal computers (“PCs”) and magnetic recording tape can be obtained for digital VTR, and the like. In particular, many types of storage media allow information stored thereon to be accessed at random, that is, the information need not be stored in any particular order on the media. Other types of media are sequential. Sequential media can provide quicker access to information stored thereon, but the information is stored in a sequential order on the medium. Further, digital information such as video and audio signals can be recreated with substantially the same quality as when recorded, even when the recordings are edited and copied repetitively. With such advantages, electronic storage media can provide many benefits to both commercial and business applications.
Applications may seek to store large amounts of information onto various digital media. While advantages to such applications can be readily perceived, further efficiencies can be realized. In particular, the techniques used to store information on various media can be improved to accommodate applications that seek to store and retrieve large amounts of information from the media at suitable data rates.
What is really needed is an apparatus for recording relatively large amounts of data onto disk type recording media.